Shanghai intensifies lockdown as Xi Jinping insists on zero-Covid

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

Hong Kong (CNN)Shanghai is further tightening its stringent lockdown measures after China's top leader Xi Jinping pledged to "unswervingly" double down on the country's controversial zero-Covid policy, leaving millions confined to their homes with no end in sight.

Over the weekend, videos showing Shanghai residents arguing or scuffling with hazmat suit-clad workers and police officers while being forcefully taken away for government quarantine circulated widely on Chinese social media. Many have since been removed by censors after sparking public anger.

The outcry comes as authorities appear to have walked back efforts to ease restrictions in parts of the city, despite a drop in new infections, as local officials come under pressure to curb community transmission of the virus.

Under the new hardline policies, even residents with negative Covid tests can find themselves placed into centralized government quarantine. According to social media posts and local government notices circulating online, in several parts of the city, entire apartment blocks have been deemed a health risk, with all occupants forced from their homes and placed into quarantine on the back of one positive case.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/09/china/china-covid-shanghai-restrictions-escalate-intl-hnk/index.html

[speak easy]

1. Insane.

[IronLionZion]

2. Seems a bit extreme

They have vaccines and masks but choose draconian social control. Meanwhile American COVIDiots think vaccines and masks are draconian social control.

[AZLD4Candidate]

6. I lived under that at the beginning in Shanghai city center (Xuhui district in Xujiahui)

I'm heading back in a month to be with my wife again after a two year COVID separation. Luckily, she lives and I will work in a live in a rural section, not an urban center when I go back.

Even where we have our condo that is being built isn't like Shanghai now.

[IronLionZion]

8. Don't you want to bring her to the US?

Plenty of freedom and vaccines and jobs here

[AZLD4Candidate]

9. They denied her green card twice.

[catsudon]

15. at this poiont i believe sinovac (chinese vac)

is a placebo...

according to some people i talked to, when they got sinovac, they don't feel anything, and yet when they get the western booster, they felt some effect.

[IronLionZion]

17. I've seen articles claiming Sinovac needs 3 shots

to get the same protection as our 2 MRNA shots. But most of us have gotten boosters making it 3 shots anyway.

[Warpy]

16. It's also futile unless he shuts down power, water, gas, hospitals, police, firefighters

and everybody else considered essential to life. People would also stop getting packets of food left outside their doors, those workers would have to lock down, also.

So unless he's ready to kill a bunch of people with Draconian lockdown measures, more than would be killed by the virus, he's fighting a battle that has already been lost.

What he needed to do was vaccinate everybody. The Chinese vax is about 80% effective against the disease, with the other 20% most likely experiencing reduced symptoms.

Lockdowns might have been important in the earliest waves of the disease, jury's still out on that one, but there was no alternative since there was no vaccine.

Instead, this is a futile action from a man who's flexing his muscles. He's putting the people of Shanghai through incredible hardship while throwing a wrench into global commerce. Chinese leaders have been overthrown for less than that.

[inwiththenew]

3. We are going to feel the affects of this very soon

The lockdowns have messed up shipping again just when it was starting to get back on track. Get ready for more shortages and higher prices all summer on stuff coming out of China.

[AZLD4Candidate]

10. Not to mention that they are blowing through their treasury a lightning speed. Let's examine

1: Everything you said is true so exports are not being sold so no incoming money.

2: All that lovely high speed rail and freeways and new airports were built on the Chinese version of American T-bills, so they went into extreme debt to put in infrastructure that their exports brings in.

3: They do not "require" COVID testing three days a week, but with their COVID tracking app, if you do not test (and all records of testing are put into that app), your "green" code goes into "yellow," which means if you travel out of your area (even one city over) by public transit (or some police officer doesn't recognize you and wants to check), you are put into quarantine for seven days (simply by crossing a intra-provincial border.

4: These E3D testing must cost a fortune because of making, administering, recording, and updating the findings after the test, as will as salaries and other payments to the people giving the tests, as well as the companies that are tests. No one is doing this for free. As a result, with little money coming in, debt from infrastructure projects, and money flying out the door with no replacement, the house of cards that is the Chinese economy is probably going to collapse. And since the Chinese economy is unstable and borderline fraudulent (CFOs normally run three books: one for the government, one for the investors, and the real one, just like truckers usually run three logbooks; one for the company, one for the police, and one for the tax man), when it collapses, it will fall fast and hard.

The CPC claimed the Mandate of Heaven when it seized power in 1949. If anyone knows Chinese history, plagues, famines, food shortages, civil unrest, poverty, and natural disasters are, historically, signs a regime has lost the Mandate. Sadly, if that happens, the Chinese will probably choose something worse and nothing will change as there is no legacy of any form of Democracies and 5,000 years of the Confucian "society is like an ant colony or a bee hive" is part of the ingrained culture and mindset.

If the younger generation (under 30) can resist that, then democracy has a slight chance. . .but China has had a 5,000 year tradition of picking the wrong people to lead and accepting, at times extreme, authoritarianism.

[Initech]

4. Zero COVID is cruel and inhumane!

Fuck XI Jianping!

[AZLD4Candidate]

5. My wife told me to hold off on booking a ticket from HKG to the mainland in order to determine

Last edited Mon May 9, 2022, 12:48 PM - Edit history (1)

where I can fly into when I am done with my quarantine in HKG.

I want Shanghai, but that may be out, so Changhhou, Hefei, Wuxi, or Nanjing would be the best options.

Luckily, my wife's part of Jiangsu has only a three day quarantine and cases are extremely low in the place where she lives and where we will move to live and work.

BUT. . .I have backup plans in case China does what it likes to do and seal the borders. Thailand and Korea came through and they don't have quarantines any more. . .just a PCR test in the airport and we're gone.

My doctor here in Tucson thinks this policy China has is "nuts" because "with vaccinations, COVID is manageable."

I told my wife Xi would use this as an excuse to control and monitor people more, returning to the days of Mao.

From the article (emphasis mine):

“It’s not that you can do whatever you want – unless you’re in America. This is China,” another police officer says sternly, waving a bottle of disinfectant in his hand. “Stop asking me why. There is no why. We have to obey our country’s regulations and epidemic control policies.”

First bold face: This is the standard answer to anyone who gives even the most minor pushback and criticism of anything in China. "You know, the one child policy is extremely sexist." "This is China. It's our way." "Calling black people on the street "hei gui（黑鬼）" (which is the Chinese for the n-bomb) is really racist." "It's our way. This is China. Everyone does it." It's their cover for anything they know is wrong, but will follow because the leader or the culture instruct them to do so. “为什么？” “这是中国。”

Second boldface:没有为什么. This is the the common response when you ask a why question before they say 这是中国. It is a literal translation to the Chinese 没有为什么, which means "no why." 你为什么相信这个?" "没有为什么。这是中国。老外需要接受我们的文化或你马上回去你的国家."

Why do you believe this?
No why. This is China. Foreigners need to accept this or you need to immediately go back where you came from."

As I tell my wife, it's wrong thinking to say "this is our way" here in the States and it's wrong there in China too.

-----Lesson over-----

[Initech]

11. The problem with China's vaccine is the Chinese government.

They refused supply of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Instead they opted to produce their own vaccine - Sinopharm. And that particular vaccine only had a 40% efficacy rating. So the Chinese citizens naturally refused to take the vaccine because they didn’t trust the Chinese government.

So really, Xi is his own worst enemy in this equation. Had he accepted that the Chinese vaccine was a failure and got the Pfizer / Moderna vaccines, none of this had to happen. Which is why I say fuck Xi Jianping.

[AZLD4Candidate]

12. Not only did they refuse, they don't recognize it as a legitimate vaccine.

They classify it as an "inactivated vaccine," which means, literally, you aren't vaccinated. You can skip the quarantine only if you have the Chinese vaccine, or have it lessened.

But that's how it is. If it isn't Chinese, it's useless and worthless. Only things from China are acceptable.

Except KFC, McD, Starbucks, Coca Cola, Nike, Apple. . .they even say Nokia is Chinese because "well it's made here." I normally responded "but it was in invented in NY, so it's ours."

[Initech]

13. Which is exactly why the "America First" movement is scary as hell.

Imagine if the MAGAs used Xi’s line of thinking to their advantage.

[AZLD4Candidate]

14. I can understand economic protectionism in American First. . .offshoring jobs hurts the country

Not buying domestic does to, since profits go to foreign entities.

It's the social and cultural "American first" and American exceptionalism I have massive problems with because it's nothing more than classic nativist xenophobia.

[oldsoftie]

18. "America First" needs to mean "Get critical supplies OUT of China"

THATS putting America First. Taking away the cash cow from china; who uses our money against us & against other free countries all mover the world. Its their quest to dominate the world. We MUST stop giving them the funds to do it. And the EU as well

Doesnt HAVE to be made here, just get it out of THERE

[IronLionZion]

19. If people think stuff is expensive now

just wait until some America First policy mandates stuff only made in America.

[EX500rider]

20. Actually Nokia is a Finnish multinational founded in 1865.

Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland

[AZLD4Candidate]

21. I know that. You know that. But "it's made in China, so it's a Chinese company."

Again, don't look for logic. I didn't in my 15 years there before and I won't when I go back to be with my wife in a month.